Chicago — In a battle with former training partner Raufeon Stots, it was Sergio Pettis coming away with a key win at PFL Chicago on Friday.
Pettis, a former Bellator MMA bantamweight champion, bounced back from a loss to Kyoji Horiguchi with the unanimous decision victory. Now, it appears he’s lined up for bantamweight gold in the PFL, though how and when that opportunity comes remains a question. Patchy Mix, who held 135lb gold for Bellator most recently, has since departed for the UFC. In theory, Pettis could end up facing the winner of the PFL Bantamweight World Tournament next.
A title shot is certainly on Sergio Pettis’ mind. “Man, I would like to get a title shot. I’m here for that belt, I’m here for a reason. I’m not here to just fight lower-level guys. I want to fight the best of the division,” he told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight. “I would love a title shot, and my goal is to become a two-division champion.”
Then there’s the idea of becoming a two-promotion champion, as brother Anthony Pettis did. “In Bellator, now PFL. My brother’s got the WEC and the UFC, and we’d be the first two brothers to have really all the belts that are really big right now.”
After fighting a training partner in Stots (both men have put in their time at Roufusport in Milwaukee), Pettis is hoping to forgo similar match-ups in future. “What a weird experience. This job takes you to places you would ever expect, and you go against people you would never expect to face,” he noted, adding as he has several times before and after the fight, “PFL do not do this to me ever again, please!”
Despite the win being the first for Pettis since 2023, the bantamweight wasn’t the happiest with his showing. As he explained to Cageside Press, there were areas to improve in.
“Just my takedown defense, just being a little bit less gun-shy,” he noted. “It is also because I fought a guy I know. It was weird to really try to hurt somebody I know. I wasn’t holding back my punches, but I wasn’t comfortable trying to inflict damage until he started punching me on the ground. I was like ‘oh this motherf*cker is trying to win.'”
Pettis is hoping to face someone he’s not friends with moving forward, he reiterated. “I’ll go out there, try to sleep them.”
Watch the full PFL Chicago post-fight press conference with Sergio Pettis above.
